By Dipo Olowookere
It was not a good day for Customs Street on Friday as it went down by 0.07 per cent on the back of sustained profit-taking, especially in the financial services sector.
Business Post reports that the consumer goods counter declined by 0.81 per cent, the insurance index shrank by 0.56 per cent, and the banking sector decreased by 0.38 per cent, while the energy and the insurance sectors appreciated by 0.34 per cent and 0.02 per cent, respectively.
When trading activities ended for the day, the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) limited retreated by 64.88 points to 98,458.68 points from the 98,523.56 points it ended a day earlier, and the market capitalisation depleted by N37 billion to close at N56.578 trillion compared with the previous day’s N56.615 trillion.
Investor sentiment turned bearish yesterday after 26 stocks depreciated and 21 stocks appreciated, indicating a negative market breadth index.
Caverton lost 9.76 per cent during the trading day to close at N2.68, Northern Nigerian Flour Mills moderated by 9.50 per cent to N31.90, University Press crumbled by 8.85 per cent to N2.37, McNichols slipped by 8.57 per cent to trade at N1.60 and International Breweries fell by 6.96 per cent to N4.01.
Conversely, Beta Glass gained 10.00 per cent to sell for N48.95, Meyer improved by 9.93 per cent to N7.75, Deap Capital jumped by 9.90 per cent to N1.11, Ellah Lakes increased by 9.82 per cent to N4.92, and Abbey Mortgage Bank went up by 9.65 per cent to N2.50.
The activity chart showed that the volume of transactions went up by 131.51 per cent to 797.2 million shares from 344.4 million, the value of trades appreciated by 1.52 per cent to N6.7 billion from N6.6 billion, and the number of deals shrank by 13.78 per cent to 7,764 deals from 9,005 deals.
Sitting on top of the activity chart in terms of the volume of trades was Japaul with the sale of 591.2 million shares for N1.5 billion.
UBA traded 27.9 million equities valued at N717.7 million, Zenith Bank transacted 11.8 million stocks worth N442.9 million, Access Holdings exchanged 11.4 million shares valued at N223.7 million, and Transcorp traded 10.7 million equities worth N119.9 million.